The district is situated 32° 17′ to 32° 55′ North Latitude and 75° 70′ to 76° 16′ East longitude.
The District is surrounded by Punjab in the South-East, Himachal Pradesh in North-East, Doda
and Udhampur in North and North-West, Jammu in the West and Pakistan in the South-West
with an area of 2502 Sq Kms (Census 2011), population of 6.16 Lacs, 5 Assembly
Constituencies & 11 Tehsils; Kathua, Bani, Basohli, Billawar, Hiranagar, Nagri, Marheen, Dinga
Amb, Lohai-Malhar, Mahanpur and Ramkot.
It is also divided into 19 blocks: Bani, Basohli, Baggan, Kathua, Billawar, Hiranagar, Nagri,
Barnoti, Marheen, Dinga Amb, Duggain, Duggan, Lohai-Malhar, Mahanpur, Mandli, Nagrota
Gujroo, Bhoond, Dhar Mahanpur, Keerian Kandyal & has approximately 512 villages.
The traditional language of Kathua is Dogri. The Pahari languages are prevalent in the
mountainous area of the east. The principal media of education are English, Hindi, and Urdu.
Climate:
The areas falling in Kathua district experiences wide range of climate from sub-tropical to
temperate area and even alpine in higher regions of Bani and Lohai-Malhar blocks. Because of
altitudinal varieties, there is vast difference between the temperature of two plain tehsils of
Kathua and Hiranagar with those of Hilly Tehsils of Basohli and Billawar. The Summer
temperature rises as high as 48 degree celcius in the plains and Winter temperature in the
upper hilly areas touches sub-zero. Most of the higher areas in the BASOHLI AND BILLAWAR
tehsils experiences SNOWFALLS for most part of the year. The District experiences rainfall
during winter and early Summer primarily from western disturbances and monsoon rains
from second week of July onwards. The hilly areas receives more rains than the plains. The
annual rainfall in the district is approx. 1672 mm.
Agriculture Land Utilization:
The district has a reporting area of 2.65 lacs Hectare as per revenue records out of which 0.45
lacs Hectare is agricultural use, 0.36 lacs Hectare constitutes barren and uncultivable land
excluding follow land, 0.12 lacs Hectare accounts for culturable waste, 0.13 lacs Hectare is
under misc. trees, 0.10 lacs Hectare forms permanent pastures, 0.01 lacs Hectare is fallow
land other than current fallows, 0.14 lacs is the area under current fallows and 0.61 Hectare is
net area sown. The total cropped area of the district during 1999-2000 was 1.24 lacs Hectare
of which 0.63 lacs hectare represents the area sown more than once.
Land Holding:
According to the agricultural census of 1991-92, the district had 69508 number of land
holding of different sizes. Out of these 60.15% were of below one Hectare and only 39.85%
were of the sizes of one hectare and above which indicates that large number of land holding
are very small.
Cropping pattern:
Major crops of the district are Paddy, Maize and Wheat. Wheat and Paddy constitutes the
staple food in plain tehsils Viz. Kathua and Hiranagar where as Maize for Hilly Tehsils Basohli
and Billawar. Wheat being main crop in whole of the district had covered 50 thousands
hectare of area followed by paddy grown over an area of 36 thousand hectare and rest 38
thousand hectare were covered under maize, millets, oil seeds, pulses and vegetable crop
during 1999-2000.
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